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 and to reach her hands up to his face and caress his cheeks.

"He has blessed me, too, Man of Mine." She blushed as she uttered the words and realized what she had unconsciously said. The feeling in her heart had forced them to her lips, the woman in her overcoming the maidenliness. She was so confused she kissed him suddenly and ran lightly up the steps and was gone.

Bennet watched her retreating form lift like a vision up the steps, and stood waiting for her to turn and look at him again. He stood so for a few moments and when she failed to look back, bared his head, lifted his face to the sky and said, fervently: "God grant that I shall be always worthy of her—that I'll always make her happy."

He turned to leave, his soul still in the universe of his love. Lida reached her room and looked from her window. He failed to turn but she blew him a kiss from the tips of her fingers then sank by the window sill where tears of sheer happiness filled her eyes.

Commencement day found the college yard filled with hundreds of shouting, laughing, handshaking graduates of the famous old school, all returned to do honors to their alma mater and to renew friendships as well as to give accounts of their activities since the previous gathering.

Campus was decorated as only college youth, with unlimited imagination can decorate for their friends and relatives on festive occasions. Fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, all proud of their individual candidate for degree strolled about the grounds, meeting friends of other years or renewing acquaintances formed since arrival.